When We Were Us
by Songs for a Solstice
Summary: Balthazar doesn't understand the anguish and betrayal in Castiel's eyes as that sword pierces his skin pierces his Grace and shatters his soul into a million shards till after he's pulled himself together again, finally knowing why Castiel didn't - couldn't - kill him. Balthazar/Castiel, Dean/Castiel secondary pairing . Angst, amnesia, and hope.


**Supernatural feels. Also I actually will just ship any angel with any angel but these two in particular...)=**

**Comments are appreciated and inspire much love :3**

* * *

_I'm sorry, I didn't know, I didn't remember, I did it all for you_.

Balthazar wakes out of a million broken fragments, a cracked whole with fissures running dark and cold through his Grace like fault lines, tectonic plates struggling not to collide and break him again, once and for all.

At some point, somehow, he staggers through time and space, uncaring and unknowing of where he treads (because this is the true nature of an angel, all freezing fire and burning ice, above and beyond in a way that can never be captured by a human vessel), and it's only when he realises that he's about to enter Robert Singer's house, still luminous with the bleeding, weeping horror of his supernatural soul, that Balthazar manages to reach out, force himself into the slender, long-limbed dying body (soul gone, and only his Father knows where) of a serial killer's victim.

In what is almost an aside, he reaches out and shatters every bone of his body's would-be-murderer's disgusting, stocky frame, and throws out the thought of _sometimes, an angel's vengeance is just_ to anyone who gives a fuck.

A heartbeat later, Balthazar collapses at Dean Winchester's feet, deaf to the alarm and concern in the voices around him (because he's too busy hearing his own voices, the new ones that have been there since the beginning.)

* * *

_There is no such thing as incest, no question of lust and unwholesome desire. They are their Father's children, and they are brothers, in the way that all living creatures are brothers and sisters under God's wing._

_Balthazar secretly thinks this, even a long time later when his most glorious brother (lie) falls to ruin, the Morningstar's glow dimmed and shunted into a hole in the ground; even when Alastiel and Beliel and Azazel turn in horror from the work of God's _most righteous soldiers _that fateful day in Jerusalem, when women burn in synagogues and children scream and not one inhabitant lives to see the next day._

_(And he still believes, even when, five hundred years later, he comes across Alastiel-turned-Alistair, mouth bared in a bloody grin as he bites into the broken neck of a twelve year old girl, impaled on his vessel's cock. _Ironic, isn't it Balthie? _Alasti- Alistair says, fleeing his vessel before he can see Balthazar break down before the discarded form of his brother.)_

_But before that – before time begins, before he looks at humanity with anything more than mild curiosity – that's when _they _live, that's when they're happy._

_Anael complains to him about angels not being able to love in the seventh century, and Balthazar nods polite agreement as he echoes the conversation back to Castiel (_his _Castiel) and the other angel laughs, sending shivers of pleasure through their link (profound and strong and _there_in a way Balthazar isn't linked to any of the others)._

Either she's wrong, or we aren't true angels_, Castiel tells him._

_Sometimes, he doubts himself; but if Castiel isn't an angel, then he must be God._

_They say that the Morningstar shone brightest, that he was resplendent beyond all others._

They _can't have seen Castiel in the aftermath of climax, or running through the Gardens, or in the Golden Fields with his face tilted to the sky, or at all._

* * *

He remembers.

"I remember," Balthazar tries to explain, waving away a glass of water, but Sam merely looks confused, and there's nothing (too much) to say so he gives up and asks instead, "Where is Castiel?"

Because that's always been the question, even when he couldn't remember.

The Winchesters and their surrogate father exchange glances, and Dean starts talking, hesitant and defensive and _you're in love with him too, aren't you? _Balthazar realises.

At some point, he'll care about that; but for now, he'll look at maps and records of weather and miracles, at books and to his long, failing memory for some impossible way to summon the only Horseman that could ever really matter (because Azra'il stands above their Father, above the universe herself for that fateful day when everything will fall under Death's scythe.)

He doesn't know who brought him back, but he _knows_.

It's always the same, always the same name to blame the same Father to curse, hidden away and shrouded from scrutiny and any possible hope of reprimand.

* * *

_Castiel is dead, Raphael tells Balthazar with no anger, no sorrow, no concern; the good soldier, doing what he must to ensure that what should happen will happen, and Balthazar leaves in an instant, catching the slightest flicker of surprise across Raphael's Grace before he's overlooking an Antarctic valley, blessedly empty._

No_, he thinks. _No_._

No._ This time, it trembles through his Grace, vibrating in his soul._

NO.

_A few penguins shriek in fear, and he ignores the sound of their eardrums bursting with soundless pops that ring out, intrusive and gratifying. Because for the first time, Balthazar is reaching out and up, spreading his being _through _the world in a way that reminds him jarringly of just how_different _they are to humanity._

Father.

FATHER.

DEUS, PATER, PATER, HEUS-

Hello, Balthazar.

* * *

"I'm sorry, but…how the fuck are you still alive?"

Soulless or Lucifer's vessel, Balthazar will always be a million times more fond of Sam than of Dean (not because of the way Castiel looks at the older Winchester sometimes, or of the number of times Castiel has died for that moron, because he didn't remember). But he can't muster the energy (_not now that he remembers_) to bother with a retort. "I don't know," he says dully (_lie, because he never died_). "And as much as I'd love to speculate – don't you have more pressing concerns?"

Some sort of jibe about psychotic angels with illusions of godhood turned to monster carrier promises to form till Balthazar realises with a sickening twist somewhere in his vessel's gut that this is Castiel.

_Cas_, Dean calls him like it's a good thing to take the most important part of Balthazar's brother's name from him – as though he's not worth the time to worship every syllable of that name.

_Cas-ti-el._

_I love you._

* * *

I can't.

_He feels the shrug ripple through the valley, echo on some plane above the physical, but below the astral – somewhere that is for Balthazar and his Father, for this conversation that reminds him how to be an angel, devoid of cynicism and wit that he falls into every time he manifests in human form._

_Fuck Anael; this is how to love, or at least this is how Balthazar can love Castiel-_

Could _love Castiel, if his Father has his way._

Then do not. Castiel is my son, but I have lost many sons.

_But none of them are Castiel, none of them are my Castiel, Balthazar wants to cry out to the stars, and if he gives up his memories (the memories that his Father, for some inexplicable reason, wants to take from him) then he won't be _Balthazar _anymore._

A life for a life, _his Father says, but Balthazar would rather die (completely irrevocably finally) than be a Balthazar without Castiel, and this isn't an exchange of lives, but a life for a soul._

_It isn't fair, because there's no way Balthazar can refuse._

Take them, Pater. Take them (_and give Castiel back_.)

* * *

When he isn't searching or watching Dean and Bobby look anxiously at Sam (or, for that matter, watching Sam disintegrate and knowing it's Castiel's fault, _his _fault), Balthazar _thinks_.

(What Castiel thought when Balthazar merely knew him, didn't _know _him and brushed his Grace with brotherly affection not that consuming, resplendent love that was _them _since before time)

(How stern, obedient, loving _Angel of Thursday _survived a year of agony and confusion and _loneliness_, becoming more and more human as Balthazar hid in the outreaches of Heaven and thought occasionally of his brother Castiel, lovable enough if occasionally stiff and strange)

(That even Dean Winchester in all his arrogance and petulance deserves Castiel more than Balthazar because Balthazar doesn't deserve to think his name)

(About the betrayal, the anger, the hopelessness in the rich blue eyes of Jimmy Novak as Balthazar clutched at the sword buried in his chest)

(_Does he love me?_)

(_I love you_. _For you. All for you. You not loving me matters less than you being _gone_, you are me and I wasn't me for two years because you were the only part of me that mattered but I matter less than you do._)

Sometimes, Balthazar runs. Sometimes, he hides where he can, flees his human vessel and becomes something more-less, buries himself into the ground or hovers just below the ozone layer of the Earth.

_Be safe_, he whispers on one of these days in the silence of the night, curled under his wings within the hollow of a tree in the middle of Indiana. _You are loved_, and with that he projects images of Sam bent over books, old and yellowing; even of Dean flinching whenever Castiel's name is mentioned.

_I love you_.

It's not images that accompany those words; it's an onslaught of _here we are you are beautiful this is Heaven because you are here an oasis shimmering under midnight's moon we are our souls you are everything_-

_Balthazar_?

For the first time in his long existence, Balthazar wishes he could be in his human vessel.

If only to smile, wide and hopeful.


End file.
